Guidelines - Booklets

Design as single pages

Create a separate page in your artwork for each page of your Booklet. You can supply as a multi-page document or as one document per page. Please don’t supply as “printer’s pairs” or spreads. If you are designing a booklet with a thick cover, we’ll need to have the front page, inside front, inside back and the back page supplied in their own PDF, with the rest of the pages together in another.

Add 3mm bleed to each side

Booklets need more bleed than other products. Look at the finished page size of the Booklet. Add 3mm to all sides of your page – a total of 6mm across each axis. You even need to add bleed to the edge which forms the spine. Our process chops this off and merges the spine together.

Avoid objects with cross pages

It is unlikely that objects which cross pages will line up exactly.

It is best to avoid them, or accept that there will be some vertical movement throughout your booklet. y ou will also need to allow for the bleed being trimmed off - ask us if you are not sue.

Colours

Avoid trying to match colours throughout the booklet. Some colour variation is inherent in the process and will be most noticeable where two pages of the same colour meet. If you’re ordering a booklet with a thicker cover then it is unlikely that colours crossing from the outer cover to the inner pages will match perfectly due to the different finishes of papers and card types.

Allow for creep

In a stapled Booklet the bulk of the paper causes the inner pages to extend (creep) further out than the outer pages when folded. When trimmed the inner pages are narrower than the outer pages. The amount of creep is dependent on the number of pages and paper thickness. The thicker the Booklet, the more you need to keep important objects away from the edges.

Mind your margins

Normally, we recommend that you keep important objects at least 4mm from the ‘trim’ size. As a result of creep, we’d advise you to increase your margin to avoid anything being chopped off – larger quiet areas are definitely better. When we design Booklets ourselves, we tend to leave at least 10mm of ‘Quiet Zone’ or ‘safe space’ on the trimmed edge. This means that creep isn’t as noticeable and items won’t be chopped off. If your booklet is thicker than 20 pages, we recommend adding 1mm to the quiet zone for each extra 8 pages.

Other booklets

If you are designing a booklet with a folder for a cover, please call us to discuss this as we can give you a special template and specific advice on setting the files up ready for us to produce.